AmbiguousUbiquity

RN: I totally sympathize with you. I have severe reactions to deja vu. It's strange to describe, I never really know when it's going to happen, and when it starts I can't stop it. I get really dizzy and light-headed, and I feel the blood rushing to my head. Do you get these physical sensations? Does anyone know a good book to read on deja vu?

Lauren

Relative Newcomer

when it starts I can't stop it...
Yep, I can feel it coming on, but the time I have before it starts is only enough time for me to think "oh shit, here I go again..." I don't get dizzy, but yes, the blood rushes to my head and my heartbeat increases dramatically - no doubt enhancing the deja vu.
When it happened in my youth, and well into my twenties, my reaction was to run and try to escape it...but there is no escaping it. Now when it happens I wait it out; the panic is still there but it's happened enough now that I know it will end.
If it were merely a "panic attack" I'd seek help and get medicated, but it's friggin' deja vu.
Here is a link that may or may not be of interest to you:[URL=http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Johnson2.html[/URL] You'll have to copy and paste it since I can't figure out how to insert the hyperlink...
From what I've read on the web no one knows aside from the basics what's really going on during a deja vu. Deja vu is one of those things that happens to a large percentage of the population yet the majority brush it off and say, "whoa, that was weird..." and then dismiss it.
Anyway, this post has been a bit off topic so I'll probably start a thread on it sometime later.

AmbiguousUbiquity

Should be an interesting topic.....maybe stick it in the Science and Skepticism thread? Thanks for the link. If you start the topic I'll give you my thoughts on it.

Lauren

BadBadBad

I think this illustrates religion in a nutshell. Death is disturbing to humans. There's something in us that makes us unwilling to accept that we just die. So we have to make up these nifty explanations that make us feel better about knowing we're going to die. If it's real nifty, lot's of people like it, and belief in numbers some how makes it more believable. Let's face it though. You are going to die, and you don't get to make choices about what is or is not true with respect to afterlife. Your belief does not in any way define reality.

Animals die. Does a buffalo get an afterlife? How about your beloved dog? Does he just die and cease to exist? Shouldn't we worry about that too? What's so special about us as humans? No, out of the tens of thousands of species of living organisms on this planet, we're not special. You are going to die, and with your death so too dies anything that can be construed as you.

What do we know about death? Your heart stops beating. Your cells die. Your body loses heat. Electromagnetic energy associated with the chemical processes within your body dissapates. Your body decays, and gradually the chemical elements that made up your body dissipate back into the earth. That's what we know.

I've never understood this. So, where in that process does your "conciousness" or "soul" escape your dead body? What's left of you without a brain, a body, or any sensory input? What does your "existence" mean without any relation to what you are as a physical living breathing human being?

I have an idea for you. Let's say science one day could recognize your immediately pending death. Then they had the technology to eternally freeze your body, but new technology allows them to keep your brain alive, fully functioning forever. No sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. You're just left with your thoughts and your awareness and consciousness forever.

This just let's me visualize life for eternity without a body. Let's see the pros: Well, I exist. I have my memories. I have my thought processes and imagination. Perhaps I could learn to live life through my imagination. Just like RBAC says. Anything I want. Perhaps without the limits of sensory input, imagination could seem real. Plus, with this hypothetical, I could always hope that I could be healed one day and brought back to life.

That's kind of interesting. Perhaps you folks that are afraid of death should take death into your own hands. Why not be frozen before you actually die of natural causes? Why not choose that? You can live your life with at least a plausible hope that one day you'll be resucitated and cured.

So now the cons for my hypothetical. What would I think about for eternity? What kind of existence would this be? Would it be an eternal bad trip dominated by hellish nightmares? Would it be one long god worshipping dream? It seems like a nightmare no matter how you look at it.

You are defined by your body. Without your body, "you" don't exist. When you die, what ever "might" be leftover is not you. If that left over piece contains your consciousness, it's just like my hypothetical, and life isn't worth living anyway. Sorry folks. Just let me die. Life for eternity with or without my body is not what I signed up for, and it really seems like a sick idea.

emotional

I believe they do. I both believe in life after death and accept biological evolution. All conscious living organisms have life after death.

triplew00t

But wheres the line between conscious and non-conscious? It seems to be more of a scale of reaction to stimuli. Plants react, but are they conscious? What about viruses? Insects? Where is the line drawn.

If anything has a soul, then i think everything must that lives. Plants and algae too. Unless its like the new agers think, and humans operate on the individual soul basis, and other things operate based on "group" or "hive" souls?

Nero

crocodile deathroll

This is my theory.
The reboot model

I believe in a version of reincarnation of sorts, but only in it's weakest form. I feel that when you die your life becomes totally irrelevant as you have totally forgotten every aspect of that life you lived with all the memories of that life being totally obliterated. It is subjectively identical to never been born.

The next phase I believe you become at one again with all that biological material complexity that has achieved a critical phase of evolution like a kind of cosmic reset button has been spontaneously activated. Then that material complexity that caused you to be born in the first place reboots your sense of self into existence like it did before you were born as an embryo with no prior somewhere else in the universe where such conditions are possible. How you switch from collective self to an individual person is a mechanism known as a gestalt switch illustrated.


I feel no personal desire for immortality, I just feel this just overcomes a niggling paradox about the generation problem

BadBadBad

What about algae? What happens when it dies?

emotional

To be conscious, an organism has to have a brain. Thus, all organisms that have a brain are conscious and therefore have life after death. Plants aren't conscious, neither are viruses. They may have a duplicate (astral) body, but they don't have a duplicate brain to continue consciousness.

That doesn't work. Life originally came from non-life, so that the dividing line between life and non-life is blurred. What about viruses? Are they alive or not? They partake of both living and non-living characteristics.



Algae are plants. Plants don't have a brain. Plants are unconscious. Plants don't have life after death.

BadBadBad

Consciousness? Perhaps an interesting question, but it's irrelevant isn't it? If only your brain survives for ions with absolutely zero sensory input, what is the meaning of consciousness? If your brain dies, what is the meaning of consciousness? Without your body, I submit to you that existence and consciousness are completely undefined and in fact meaningless.

What is a soul? What does it mean to exist only as a soul? What would differentiate my soul, and my existence as a soul, from the soul of a dog (emotional's suggestion) or algae (your suggestion)? Does a dog's soul worship God? Can a dog's soul suffer eternal torment in Hell if he's not a good boy? Will I get to spend eternity with my dog? Don't know if you believe in heaven and hell, but still trying to see how my soul is different from a dog's soul, and I sure miss a couple of dogs I used to have. Emotional care to answer?